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Film Maker Alex Gibney, at left, Elon Musk, at right.

Elon Musk is hitting back hard at Alex Gibney one day after the filmmaker’s “Musk” made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, including threatening legal action. 

While the tech billionaire likely hasn’t seen the four-hour documentary, he certainly has an opinion about it after voluminous press coverage described the film as a “damning” and “distressing” look at “power lust and crackpot delusion.”

“Dogs— is worth more respect than Gibney,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, in reply to another user’s post.

In another reply, Musk said Gibney “has ZERO integrity. Horrible human.”

“Gibney just assembled a hit list of people who either have an axe to grind or don’t even know me (but still have an axe to grind),” Musk wrote. 

“Musk” takes a deep dive into the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s business practices, political activity and personal life. It includes interviews with his father Errol Musk; Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard; his first wife Justine Musk; and Ashley St. Clair, the mother of his 13th child, among many more.

But even before the premiere, Musk began steps that could lead to a lawsuit. On Thursday, Sept. 3, his attorney, Alex Spiro, reportedly sent a letter to Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions accusing the filmmaker and his team of misrepresenting the facts over a claim that Musk used his satellite internet service Starlink to influence the 2024 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.

“You are on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest,” the letter warns. “Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation. Election officials in multiple states, independent cybersecurity researchers, and fact-checkers publicly refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim in November 2024, and nothing since has revived it.” 

The letter apparently refers to a quote from St. Clair in the movie in which she claimed, “He had told me (before the election) he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix.’”

St. Clair, who appeared with Gibney at the press conference in Venice prior to the premiere, said she turned down a $40 million nondisclosure agreement in order to speak freely about her time with Musk.

“When you’re offered something like that (to stay quiet), it really causes a debate in your head about what your speech means and how valuable that is and why do they want to offer me this amount of money to not speak?” St. Clair said.

But Musk called the film “boring” and “a hit piece.”

“Gutless Gibney’s fatal flaw of fabricating a false film,” Musk posted.

“Musk” makes its Bay Area premiere Oct. 7, at the 49th Mill Valley Film Festival and begins a theatrical run Oct. 16.